Chapter 24 There is no you in the world ten years later.
After separating from Zhou Jinkai, Gao Xing got off the subway and ran quickly to the resort. Before he reached the door of the villa, the phone in his pocket vibrated slightly. Gao Xing turned on the screen and it was a text message reminder.
"The Xingli Bank wealth management product (14G2080A) you purchased has been redeemed today for a total of 137,500.00 yuan (principal + income). The principal was 100,000.00 yuan, and the income was 37,500.00 yuan. If you wish to cancel, please reply to TD."
The bank mentioned in the text message was the same one I received last time, and Gao Xing almost subconsciously thought of Shen Xingjian.
She stopped thinking and quickly pushed the door open and walked in. As soon as she entered the house, she saw him sitting in the living room, as if waiting for her.
"What's the meaning?"
Shen Xingjian didn’t react for a moment: “What?”
"What do you mean by giving me money?" Gao Xing asked.
He then remembered, "Didn't you say a few days ago that you had exams and work and didn't have time to help me? So, I'll give you money, and you can work for me from now on!"
"As for me, I don't ask for much. You just need to sweep the floor, wash the dishes, and help me find Xu Jiakai as you did before." He was still proud of his own wit.
Gao Xing suddenly smiled, and that smile made Shen Xingjian feel a chill on his back.
"No need," she said slowly, "I've found a job and will start tomorrow. And I'll be moving out soon."
Shen Xingjian’s smile froze on his face, and his wheelchair unconsciously slid forward half a step: “You want to move out? Why?”
"Does it have anything to do with you?" Gao Xing turned and walked upstairs. "You have plenty of money anyway, so you can hire a full-time nanny."
“That’s not what I meant…” Shen Xingjian wanted to explain.
Gao Xing stopped, took a deep breath, and told him everything he had heard from Shi Yunran that day.
"Haven't you always been curious about where you'll be in ten years?" Her eyes were slightly red as she said maliciously, "In the world ten years from now, there won't be you."
Shen Xingjian's fingers clenched the wheelchair armrests so tightly that his knuckles turned bluish-white. His lips trembled slightly, but he couldn't make a sound.
So, is this why he can't find any trace of his future?
The living room suddenly became eerily quiet, with only the second hand of the wall clock ticking away.
Gao Xing originally wanted to tell him in a tactful way, but he didn't expect that his superior would tell him everything at once.
Never mind, she had to tell it anyway, and she didn't lie anyway.
Gao Xing told herself that no matter whether Shen Xingjian could accept it or not, it was not her fault. But even though she repeatedly gave herself such psychological hints, she still couldn't sleep all night.
At four in the morning, Gao Xing thought that he had to start work today, so he simply got up from the bed. When he opened the curtains and looked outside, he found Shen Xingjian sitting in the yard, silently looking at the sky.
On the dome, a line of white light cut through the horizon, startling a few flying birds, and splashing into the indigo-purple sky like black dots.
Shen Xingjian stared at the dawn, lost in thought. When I was young, I always thought the sky was high, the earth was vast, and life was long. I thought about what I would do in the future...
Only after I grew up did I realize that the sky could be very low, so low that it made it hard to breathe, and the land could be very narrow, so narrow that I could only walk around in this yard...
This was not the first time Shen Xingjian had experienced death. The moment the car accident happened four years ago, he thought he might die.
He was extremely scared at that time, watching his blood flow on the asphalt road that smelled of engine oil, and felt so unwilling in his heart.
He thought he was only eighteen years old and his life had just begun, why was God so cruel?
He survived, but his legs were broken and he could no longer stand. He was still unwilling to give up, thinking that it would be better to die than to be a disabled person.
And now, he heard that he was really going to die, and he felt that a broken leg didn't seem to be a big deal. Hadn't he been living like this all these years?
That’s why people are always greedy. They want to get something when they don’t have it, but they are not satisfied after they get it.
Gao Xing knew that telling him would have this result, so she rushed downstairs in two steps, the wooden stairs making a thudding sound under her feet.
Hearing the footsteps behind her, before she could speak, Shen Xingjian said: “Happy, I will give you all my money, can you burn more paper money for me in the future?”
He turned his head and fixed his gaze on her. "They say online that lonely ghosts without anyone to burn money for them are miserable. My family has never been poor in eight generations. I don't want my generation to suffer like this."
Gao Xing was still immersed in the cold and depressing atmosphere, but when he heard him say that his ancestors had never been poor in eight generations, his nameless anger, which came from his class background, suddenly flared up.
“Shen Xingjian, are you sick?” She grabbed the pillow on the sofa and threw it at him: “I’m not telling you to listen to this kind of bullshit!”
"Can't you hope for something good? Like finding out why you died, and getting out of the way before it happens?"
Shen Xingjian had certainly thought about what Gao Xing said. Before dawn, he had thought about asking about the cause of his future death, but when the day came, he felt that any reason could lead to his death.
For a disabled person living alone, a fall, an accident, or even a minor illness can cause a serious illness that gets out of control.
The existence of space-time folding seemed to give him a lot of hope, but in fact, he had really changed 0 things so far.
"Gao Xing, can you please not leave?" He spoke his true feelings for the first time without disguising his feelings. "At least... before I die."
Gao Xing walked over and stared at him: "Then cheer up and live your life to the fullest!"
…
After officially starting work, Gao Xing became busy.
Because she had just started working, the head nurse only assigned her two beds with patients, one was a grandmother suffering from mild Alzheimer's disease, and the other was an uncle in his fifties who was paralyzed in bed and in a vegetative state.
The grandmother surnamed Guo was fine, still able to take care of herself, though occasionally confused and clamoring to see Zong Ming. The situation of the other uncle in a vegetative state was more complicated. Multiple organs had begun to fail, but his family refused to give up, and there was no telling how much longer he could hold out.
"This medicine will be given at ten o'clock, and the one next to it will be given half an hour later. Remember?" In the treatment room, the head nurse counted the medicines and gave her instructions.
Gao Xing's new job is hard, but the salary is good, the head nurse is serious and responsible, and the relationships between colleagues are also good, so she plans to work for a while before deciding whether to continue preparing for the exam.
Gao Xing nodded after he understood, and pushed the nursing cart to the door of the VIP ward - the vegetative uncle he was in charge of was a VIP patient.
There are not many VIP patients in the sanatorium, and this uncle in a vegetative state is one of the few in the hospital. I heard from other colleagues that although he is a VIP, his family members seldom come to visit him, but the money is transferred on time every quarter.
A patient with so little pay and so much work to do wouldn't be happy for this newly hired temporary worker, but over the past six months, the man's condition has gradually worsened, and his organs have begun to fail. The hospital was afraid of trouble from his family if he died, so they assigned her to take over. Aren't temporary workers just there to take the blame, anyway?
Gao Xing didn't react much to this arrangement. Whether it was a VIP patient or an ordinary patient, she just did her job. As long as she didn't make any mistakes, the blame wouldn't be put on her.
Gao Xing walked over slowly, and just as he reached the door, he heard some voices coming from inside?
She was a little curious and pushed the door open and walked in.
In the ward, sunlight shone in through the dimming glass, and the curve of the bedside monitor rose and fell quietly. The man lying on the bed had an unhealthy bluish-gray skin due to long-term bed rest, and the oxygen mask left a faint red mark on his face.
Next to the IV stand, a bunch of lilies had appeared, their white petals dripping with dewdrops. By the bedside, a young woman was holding a wet towel, carefully wiping the patient's cheek.
Shi Yunran?
Glad to recognize the woman at the bedside.
Hearing some movement at the door, Shi Yunran slowly raised her head. When she saw a figure in a nurse's uniform pushing a nurse cart at the door, the surprise in her eyes was no less than hers.
"Why are you here?" Shi Yunran looked at her, recalling what happened at the entrance of the Auto Expo that day, and couldn't help but ask, "Why are you here?"
Before she finished speaking, she looked down at the name of the nurse in charge of the bed and the name tag on Gao Xing's clothes, "Are you my father's nurse in charge?"
Now it was Gao Xing's turn to be surprised. She didn't expect that the vegetative uncle she was responsible for was actually Shi Yunran's father!
When Shi Yunran heard that the nursing home had changed the nurse in charge of her father, she took time out to come and meet her. Unexpectedly, it was someone she had seen before.
"Who are you?" Shi Yunran was full of distrust towards her, let alone asking her to take care of her father.
Gao Xing knew that this was unavoidable, and she also needed to ask Shi Yunran about the cause of Shen Xingjian's death, so she said: "Hello, Teacher Shi, my name is Gao Xing. I am really sorry for what happened last time. I was too abrupt."
She reorganized the lines she hadn't had time to say last time, "Well, this is it. I'm currently living in Villa 1 of Mingjing Lake Resort. While I was tidying up the room a while ago, I found the previous owner's diary in the storage room. Inside it was a photo of you and him..."
"Because I also write some novels in my spare time, and my works have been published by Xinghai Publishing House. After reading the contents of the diary, I really want to turn this story into a novel, so I really hope to contact the owner of the diary for an interview."
She bowed sincerely. "Last time at the Expo Center, I recognized you and was so anxious that I asked such a presumptuous question. I'm really sorry!"
This statement is half true and half false. Even if Shi Yunran were to investigate, he wouldn't be able to find anything wrong with it.
After hearing this, Shi Yunran realized it was a misunderstanding. She thought...
Gao Xing saw that Shi Yunran's expression had eased a little, so he took the opportunity to ask, "You said last time that the previous owner had passed away? Could you tell me how he died?"
Shi Yunran's vigilance relaxed slightly. She turned around to glance at her father and said calmly, "Cardiac arrest."
In the room, the ECG monitor made a regular "beep-beep-beep" sound, and the medicine in the infusion bag slowly fell along the transparent hose. Gao Xing stood there in a daze, stagnant for a moment.
After a moment, she perked up and continued to ask cautiously, "Medically, sudden cardiac arrest usually has a triggering cause. He was..."
However, this time, before she could finish, Shi Yunran was already impatient. She frowned and said, "You seem to care about him a lot? As if... you've met him before."
Realizing his own gaffe, Gao Xing hurriedly explained, "How is that possible? I'm just... just a little surprised."
She hurried to the bed, took out the medicine from the nursing cart, and began to give the patient an injection.
The patient's blood vessels were thin and weak due to long-term bed rest, but Gao Xing still managed to insert the needle in one go. Shi Yunran, who was standing by, saw her skilled movements, then looked at her father lying neatly on the bed, and calmed down and said, "Nurse Gao..."
She took out her business card from her bag and stuffed it into the breast pocket of Gao Xing's nurse uniform. "I don't usually have the opportunity to come here, so I'm going to trouble you for many things. If there's anything I can help you with in the future, please feel free to contact me."
The Starship Studio printed on the business card is the IP incubation studio that Xinghai Media has invested heavily in building in recent years. After she introduced herself as an author who had cooperated with Xinghai Publishing House, the meaning of the business card Shi Yunran gave her was self-evident.
Gao Xing, though still relatively inexperienced, had been exposed to the world in the hospital and understood some of the ways of the world. She accepted the business card not because she wanted to gain anything from Shi Yunran, but because she knew that as a patient's family member, accepting it would give her peace of mind.
"Teacher Shi, can I ask where he is buried?"
Words are not enough, you have to see it with your own eyes to make a final conclusion.
"His diary gave me inspiration for my creation. If possible, I would like to go and burn some incense for him." Gao Xing lied.
Hearing her say this, Shi Yunran was in a trance for a moment. How long had it been since she had offered incense to Shen Xingjian? It seemed like... it had been many years, right?
She had thought more than once, if she had not been so impulsive and had not married Xu Jiakai, would everything have been different?
Unfortunately, there is no "if" in this world. People always have to pay the price for what they have done.
"Mingtai Mountain." She said with some regret.
…
There is a mountain to the north of southern Beijing called Mingtai Mountain. Because it is located in a remote area and is sparsely populated, a large cemetery was built at the foot of the mountain, so Mingtai Mountain has also become a metaphor for the cemetery.
It was already two o'clock in the afternoon when Gao Xing arrived there. The cleaning lady thought she was there to visit the graves and advised her to hurry up because the cemetery would be closed at three o'clock.
She didn't know whether to say it was lucky or unfortunate, but based on Shi Yunran's general description, she found Shen Xingjian's location without much effort.
A black tombstone stands at the end of the road, beneath a gloomy pine tree.
The north wind blew, and the pine scent from the mountains and forests mixed with the remaining ashes in the cemetery flew in the air. Although it was still summer, Gao Xing felt a chill to the bone.
She didn't even have to compare the name and other information on the tombstone, because it was Shen Xingjian's photo that was posted on it.
Shen Xingjian, born on August 9, 1992, died on April 1, 2015.
Established by Xu Jiakai on April 3, 2015.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
